Incredibly Long Cross-Country Train Journey
by Cecily Plum
Summary: #1 of my Arrow Obligatory AUs on tumblr. Also on ao3. Title is self explanatory.


**I found a serious of loads of AU prompts on tumblr, and felt the need to do them for Arrow, which I unfortunately do not own.**

**This is the first one.**

**Prompt is the title.**

_Back story: No island, Felicity doesn't work at QC yet, she's on her way to an interview there, Oliver has matured marginally beyond pre-Island Oliver, and is shadowing his Dad. Is currently on the way back from a meeting in Metropolis, which is where Felicity was. They are on the same train. For 20 hours. You see where this is going._

Incredibly long cross country train journey

Felicity was terrified.

Hands shaking, she tried to push her over-large, bright pink suitcase into the over-head locker, jumping out of the way when it came crashing back to earth.

She closed her eyes as it went past, preparing for it to crash onto the floor.

But the crash never came.

Cracking one eye open, she saw her case in the arms of a young man, maybe a couple of years older than her, inches above the ground.

"Maybe you should be more careful in future," he smirked, jerking her out of her ogling of bis string, lean, muscular frame, her face aflame.

"Y-yes, sorry, I will," she stuttered, "I will try not to squash you again, I mean, anyone again, not just you, I mean, not that I won't try not to squash you again, but that I will try to not squash anyone, if I can help it, not that I could crush you anyway, you're probably really hard, I mean, not hard, just muscly, and I'm babbling, sorry." She looked at the floor sheepishly. He smiled softly at her babbling.

After a moment he cleared his throat, her head jerking upright at the noise.

"Your case?" He asked, holding out the item in question which now matched the face of its owner.

"Yes, of course, sorry..."

"Oliver Queen," he supplied.

"Ah, of course Mr Quee..." She trailed off, arms still out stretched. He was Oliver Queen, heir to the Queen fortune and Queen Consolidated, infamous playboy of Starling City. And she had almost not-crushed him with her suitcase. Oh dear.

Realising that she had been just standing there staring for a while longer than was generally acceptable, she snapped her mouth shut, took her case, and turned around to once again face the demon over- head locker.

After a moment of struggling to get her case into the locker, two large, well-muscled arms, clad in a cream shirt rolled up to the elbows, reached up over her head, pushing the pink case into the locker one and for all. Turning around, Felicity was confronted by the broad chest of a certain billionaire.

"Do you know, you know my name, but I don't know yours," he said, smiling his most charming smile, one arm still above her head at she leaned forward.

"Felicity. Smoak. But I am not going anywhere with you Mr Queen, except, obviously, we're both going to Starling, but that is not the point, so could you please leave me in peace to do my Sudoku," she rambled, sliding passed him into one of the cushy seats of the compartment. It was definitely saving for first class.

She was just starting to relax, "Little Book of Killer Sudoku Puzzles" out, when she felt someone slide into the seat beside her.

Tilting her head slightly, she could see a fuzzy Mr Queen through the corner of her eye, just outside her glasses. Going back to her Sudoku, she studiously ignored him. That is, until he started prodding her arm.

"Mr Queen-"

"Please, Felicity, call me Oliver," he interrupted.

"Oliver, then," she snapped, thoroughly irritated, despite being only half an hour into a 20 hour train ride, "what do you want?"

"I'm sorry, it's just, doesn't a beautiful woman such as yourself have anything better to...do than that boring thing," he said suggestively, smirking whilst he appraised her with his eyes. She rolled her yes and grimaced. Just because she fell into this week's idea of beautiful did not mean she wasn't smart.

"And what exactly do you suggest I do, Mr Queen, since I am clearly not the sort of person to do Sudoku?"

"As I said before, please call me Oliver. And I think we both know what I think you should do, Felicity."

"Urgh. I am not going to be another notch in your bedpost, Mr Queen." Fuming, she moved to the opposite seat and went back to her puzzle.

After a couple of hours doing puzzles, Felicity decided it was high time for a nap. Pulling out a travel pillow from her travel bag, she settled it down on the window sill, ignoring the man across the compartment who was watching her every move, and went off to sleep.

When she woke up, she noticed four things. The first was that it had gotten dark whilst she slept, a twilight falling over the compartment. The second being that the curtains had been drawn, which she really should have noticed sooner, as she should have noticed the third, considering she was now lying on the seat, a blanket covering her. The forth thing she noticed was the conspicuous lack of billionaire in the compartment.

Before she could dwell on it for any longer, her stomach growled, reminding her that it was probably well past time for dinner.

Slipping off the seat, she picked up her glasses - which she didn't remember taking off - and made her way down to the buffet car.

When she got there, she quickly ordered a scrumptious sounding dinner of very posh mac and cheese. Checking the wall clock, she found she'd only been asleep for two hours. How was that possible? How? Unfortunately, she was not left much time to ponder the impossibilities of train time, due to her dinner arriving.

Tucking into the surprisingly not disappointing train dinner, she failed to notice when his obnoxiousness slid into the seat opposite her.

"Enjoy your nap?" He asked, startling her from her ravenous eating of food.

"Oliver! Oh my giddy aunt, please don't do that! I was eating for crying out loud. You interrupted food time, you do not interrupt food time, haven't any of the hundreds of girls you've been with ever told you that? Never, ever interrupt food time. Got it?" He looked stunned by her outburst and just sat there gaping at her. "But I did enjoy the nap." Oliver just looked at her bewildered.

"Okay then. I will keep that in mind for the future. Anyway, we have another 15 hours-"

"14 and a half," she interrupted. He ignored it.

"Stuck together on this train, so I thought we might as well at least try to get along. What do you say?" Felicity opened her mouth, a ramble about all the reasons she just wanted to left alone perched on the tip of her tongue, but one look at his almost pleading face had her saying something completely unexpected.

"Sure, why not."

Once she'd finished her meal, which he insisted on paying for (a favour she gladly accepted for the sake of her bank balance) they made their way back to the compartment.

This time, when he slid in next to her, she didn't move away.

They talked and talked for hours, about anything and everything. He told her about his best friends Tommy and his little sister, and she talked about MIT, and the job offer in Starling (though she didn't mention QC). They just talked and talked, until they fell asleep, still next to each other.

When Felicity awoke, she found that her travel pillow felt weird. It was harder than normal, and seemed to be warm and moving. Why would her pillow be moving? Then it hit her. Oliver. They had talked until they fell asleep. Opening her eyes, she confirmed her suspicions: she had indeed been sleeping on Oliver Queen's chest, and it seemed that, at some point in the night, they had moved to lie horizontally along the seat, his legs hanging off the side, Felicity almost entirely on top of him.

Looking up, she found herself looking into a pair of startlingly blue eyes.

"Good morning." He was far too awake for whatever time it was

"G'morning," she mumbled back, still half asleep, snuggling back into his chest.

Realising what she was doing, she tried to sit up, only to find that she was stopped by his arms around her waist.

"Let go of me," she complained, trying and failing to push off of his chest.

"Maybe I like you there," he smirked down at her. She rolled her eyes. After all the talking last night, she thought he might have at least stopped with the stupid flirting.

"That's it, let go. We still have another..." She looked down at her watch. How on earth was it only 8am!? "3 hours to go, and I really want a big, greasy fry up, but that's not going to happen, so please let me go and get coffee. You do not want to keep me from coffee." He looked at her, considering the possible consequences.

"Worse than food time?"

"Much, much worse. If food time interruption turns me into the hulk, then keeping me from coffee turns me into the abomination." He looked at her confused.

"I don't know what that means, but I'm assuming it's bad." She looked at him in disbelief. How can he not know who Hulk and Abomination are?

"Yeah, you could say that," she growled out. Surprised, he let her go, and she scrambled off his chest before he could grab her again. "Now, I'm going to get coffee and breakfast. Goodbye."

After two cups of coffee, she couldn't avoid going back to the compartment anymore. To her surprise, it was, once again, empty.

Making the most of Oliver's absence, she tidied her stuff away, then retrieved her Sudoku book from her bag, and started doing the puzzles again.

It was half nine, half an hour away from Starling central, when Oliver came back and sorted his stuff out. The easy chat of the night before was gone. He kept looking like he wanted to say something but stopping. After ten minutes, Felicity had had enough.

"What do you want to say, Oliver?" He looked surprised.

"Um, well, willIseeyouagain?" He said in a rush. Felicity blinked in disbelief. Oliver Queen, playboy Queen, did not just ask if her was going to see her again. "It's okay if you don't. I can't really believed j just asked that. So lame. But seriously, will I, can I, see you again? And I think your babbling is contagious." She giggled at him.

"I would lo-like to see you again." She could see that he caught her slip-up, but his smile made her not care.

"How does the Costa down the road from QC sound? After your interview with Da- Mr Queen, of course."

"That sounds perfect."

They quickly exchanged numbers, promising to see each at Costa the next day. It wasn't until Felicity dumped her suitcase on the bed in her hotel room that she realised she'd just made a date with the most infamous playboy in America. And all because of her case. Just what had she got herself in for?

Wait a minute!

How the heck did Oliver know her interview was at QC!?

Finite.


End file.
